Jamboree

In my first year of university I was introduced to a lovely music venue in East London, Jamboree. It is situated at the end of Cable Street, just near Limehouse station. I remember the first time I visited, you pass through a velvet curtain and are transported into a different time and place. The gypsy pirate jazz genre draws together an interesting bunch and over the course of the night this tiny room is filled to the brim. It welcomes everyone. It provides a beautiful contrast to the lives of most who live in the city, a small room  filled with horns and accordions, sea shanties and people who welcome strangers. We went again last night and were not disappointed, as the music started I felt as though I was in 30’s Paris. Halfway through the night an Italian couple I had just met turned to me and said  they knew why I came here.

Its the kind of place that leaves you with that full heart feeling, like a nostalgic movie or beautiful sunrise, inspired to do more with your life.

It's kind of too cool, the way that lots of things in East London are, but it hasn’t crossed that line- it still has genuine character and soul-it hasn't fallen victim to the trend of being 'cool' for the sake of being 'cool'. So much so, I almost don’t want to share it with you ;)

You can check out their website and events here. 

Maybe you already know of this place, but if not I would absolutely encourage you to go, especially on Monday nights! Let me know if you are thinking of paying a visit? 

Wedding Letters DIY

One of my friends, the lovely Becca May, is getting married in the summer. She is a craft lover and we decided to work together on some crafty ideas, starting with these letters. Becca bought these for 50p each on sale at Hobbycraft, but they are only about £1 normally. In this post I'm going to run you through exactly what we did, but there are unlimited way of adding personal touches to your wedding (which also happens to be one of my fav hobbies)!

Supplies needed:

Mache letters

Paint (we used simple poster paint)

Glue gun

Buttons (or sequins, beads etc)

Start by painting all your letters, depending on your paint you may need two or three layers.

Lots of the buttons we used had parts on the back which stuck out in order to be sewn onto things. We used a craft knife to make slits on the letters to push the back of the buttons through so that they didn't stick out too much.

Lastly, use a glue gun to stick the buttons on. 

 This is such a simple project, but adds a perfect DIY touch! I've seen people decorate these letters in all  sort of imaginative ways. What would you do?

This is part of the Jack of All Trades link up!

How not to do photography

The local elections are coming up soon, on the 22nd of May. This means that we recently received a leaflet through the door with our voting options. I had a flick through and was quite shocked with the content of some of their spreads. As voters we are obviously supposed to vote based on policy, but it's a fact that visual publicity will play a role in how people vote, or even if they do vote. For example, here is the spread for the Liberal Democrats candidate, David Thorpe.

This spread is not too bad in terms of design, but those pictures are terrible. The main picture next to his name is extremely blurry and low quality. It looks a little like someone took it of him after a night out with friends, on a phone, whilst intoxicated. Does he really want to be known as the man with the blurry face? The next picture, of Mr Thorpe on the DLR is a little better, but very out of focus and all in all a little creepy. It reminds me of the type of picture on the 'Banned' wall in a pub I used to work in. The last picture has the most promise, he may even be smiling. But no one would know because it is so underexposed, I wouldn't know if I passed him in the street. As one of my friends pointed out, it comes across as lazy, and no one wants to elect a lazy Mayor!

I know this isn't the type of thing I normally post about, but I found it really interesting that this was allowed to go to print and no one mentioned that it could be bad for his image.

Anyway, that's my comms. head.
Have a lovely day- hottest day of the year so far!

Hen Partaaay!

  This weekend was the hen do of my best friend, Chloe. It was a lovely weekend, and I hope a good send off for Chloe into married life. The whole thing was a complete surprise for her. I enjoyed planning it but would have loved to have more time, it fell right before my deadlines and I now have the mouth ulcers to prove it.

Chloe is the kind of girl who people are drawn to, because of this I tried to incorporate all age groups into her day. It was about finding ways to communicate that all these ladies in her life are extremely valued by her.

We started on the Friday night with just the bridesmaids, this involved a trip to the beach for chips, the closed funfair and the arcades. I won more on the 2p machines than ever before! That night we stayed at one of the girls houses and watched many wedding themed chickflicks. 

The next morning I got up early to go down to the venue and set up. We were staying at The Privett centre, an old school house in a tiny little village outside Petersfield. It sleeps 20 and was a perfect place to host this kind of thing. 

We started with a little treasure hunt outside, we lost 10 of the 40 bags of sweets we were meant to find, so if your in the area there are Haribo waiting for you.  We then invited everyone for a cream tea, there were about 40 of us. Mum and I had made all the scones the night before using my mother in laws recipe. We grew in respect for the 500 scones Matts mum had made for the wedding! 

After the cream tea there was a time for people to make little cards and words of encouragement that would then be compiled and given to her. I didn't get to read many of them but they were certainly a testament to who Chloe is. She then did a Mr and Mrs Quiz as hosted by her soon to be sister in law. For each question she got wrong a volunteer would be blindfolded and get to facepaint Chloe.

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In the evening 15 of us ate together and then played games. One of these games was Sardines, for those of you not familiar with Sardines I'll explain the rules. Turn all the lights in the house off and ban torches. One person goes to hide whilst everyone else waits together counting to 100. When we reach 100 everyone splits up to find the hider. Once you find the person hiding you have to secretly hide with them until everyone else has found them. I guess it's called sardines because you end up feeling like packed sardines in a dripping shower cubicle or under a bed. This game is adrenaline pumping enough as it is, but on Saturday night one of the fire doors that opens onto the woods kept coming open. I think it was a slightly faulty latch but it was enough for us to need to hold hands and inspect the door together.

We spent most of the rest of the night dancing, Sarah of We Are Hairy People (check that link out!) made us all 'Chloe' Tshirts. We put them on and flash mobbed Chloe to 'Drop it like it hot'. Fun Fun Fun.

She was blindfolded the whole way here. Setting out on the treasure hunt in an old wedding dress. The result of the facepainting. The Hen tshirts! Pics 1&2 by Anna 

Thank you to everyone who came along, helped me plan and contributed their skills. I love you allllll! x   

                               

Passion Projects/ What if I Wouldn't Fail

Some of the personal touches at our wedding. mhmm :)

Today I was in my very last ever lecture of university, it happened to be a PR lecture and we had the head of careers with us, talking about next steps. She asked the whole class what we would do, what career we would choose, if we knew we wouldn’t fail. Everyone took a while to think this through. Some people had no idea what they wanted to do, other people were so sure of the niche career they were pursuing. When we had all taken a few minutes to think about it and talk it over with those around us, we had to share with the class. My thoughts drifted in three directions. I thought I would share these, share my passions:

PR- taking this module has shown me that my ENTP (take the test) traits have a place in this world, and it has really opened my eyes to a career that I’ve never thought about before. I love the idea of working in a busy environment, relying heavily on interpersonal skills and creative ideas- I’ve even applied for internships. 

Craft- I’m guessing you figured this one out already. The thing I love about craft, and running craft workshops is that its so accessible. People think they can’t, but nearly always they can. I love the way creative confidence effects all-round confidence. Im a particularly big fan of DIY wedding craft.

Blogging- My hero is Elsie of A Beautiful Mess, I love that blog and pretty much everything they do. Blogs are great ways of communicating something to a lot of people, more than you could at a craft workshop and with more ease than writing a book. It combines words, photography and original ideas.

So could I combine these?

PR is very much a part of blogging, especially if you are hoping to grow and profit from your blog. I could have a blog that focuses on wedding based craft, and perhaps a bit of adventure thrown in for good measure (theres lots of craft blogs, but I’ve never seen anyone combine this with wild camping). I have no idea how that can happen apart from hard work. I still love the face to face nature of workshops, so maybe I could start doing workshops and consultations for wedding crafts. Helping people make the guests favours, or hair combs for the bridesmaids…. 

Im just thinking out loud.

I suppose in a years time we will see what direction my life took.

And then I’ll write another blog post.

But what I'm most interested in is if you took the personality test, pretty please share your results!

Wildcamp.

Im not doing so well at blogging EVERY DAY in May. But I think the amount of fun I had over the bank holiday weekend well and truly makes up for it. Im saving the passion projects post for when I have some spare time, as its something I feel rather passionately about (coincidence, I think not).

On Sunday afternoon Matt and I headed to London Victoria to get a coach to Bristol. It is the birthday of Matt's good friend, Stef. Stef has chosen to make himself homeless for the month of May (read his blog here). Its an impressive feat, he has a hammock, axe and a cool firelighter thing. The aspect I find more impressive is that his lovely girlfriend Katie has to don a hammock for the night if she wants to see him, which she did for the last 3 nights. What a trooper!

We definitely wanted to stay the night so packed our sleeping bags and tent. My worry with wild camping is that at some point in the night you'll hear someone telling you to move on because it's actually illegal to wild camp or you're on their land (like this time- I didn't mention it but the warden came over in the morning). Thankfully, whilst scouting a good camping spot Stef had come across the farmer that owned the land and been granted permission.

I love the idea of camping in hammocks, you're off the ground, which is warmer and there are no rocks to disturb your sleep. You can put up a cover incase it rains but you are still at one with your surroundings. And there are no foxes next to your head, I hate foxes. Hammocks are definitely on our wish list!

It felt so good to have a break from London, so refreshing. We set up in the dark, so it was only at the impressive time of 9.00 AM, having been woken up by bird song that I unzipped the tent and saw that we were camped on a lovely little patch of bluebells and cow parsley with a view over the river severn.

I hope you had a great bank holiday weekend! I look forward to reading your BEDM posts! As summer approaches I have an insatiable taste for the outdoors. It makes London living a challenge. Anyone want an adventure? xx

My Three Favourite Posts

Today I want to share with you three of my favourite blog posts, and a short sentence or two about why they made this list.

1. How to make bath bombs at home
This is my favourite because it stands for more than just a blog post. I had been doubting the workshops and feeling like I was wasting my time a little. The next month we made bathbombs in a workshop, it was perhaps my favourite workshop so far. There were lots of great people, I loved the way they customised the boxes we packaged them in, lots of people were really proud of what they had made. I even got a video from one girl who had just put the bath bomb in the bath and was so excited about it that she filmed it! Lots of these were given as gifts to loved ones- sharing the joy. I then took this workshop to another group of people as part of a 'ladies night' it went equally as well and I left feeling generally better about what Im trying to do. So this blog post is not only a brilliant, informative post about making bath bombs (if I do say so myself) its also affirmation for me and a sign Im doing something right.


2. A Gingerbread Masterpiece
This post is from Christmas time (remember that?) and it sums up the joy and creativity that so many of our friends exude. We essentially spent nearly £100 on gingerbread and then set about trying to build St. Pauls Cathedral. It was a lot of fun, our floor got really sticky and we still have lots of gingerbread in our freezer.


3. India 
This was posted nearly exactly a year ago, before Dear Friend, and on my old blog 'Let there be light'. I like my old blog, it is home to my first attempts at photography, editing and writing. This post is about my time in India. The first time ever leaving Matt for more than a few hours. I find it crazy to think that was a whole year ago, so much changes in a year, and maybe a year from now I'll be looking at this post and thinking wow, what a different place I'm in. Beneath the India post you can find my time in S. Korea. I went to both within a month- no wonder Im feeling like I never travel anymore.

So that brings my three fav posts to a close. My pageviews dont say these are the best three, I think India only has like 5 pageveiws, so if you have different favourites feel free to share them. Im now gonna have a gander on Twitter at everyones entries yesterday :)

Also, just to reiterate, if your looking for a good cause to donate money to pretty please consider sponsoring me!

Happy Saturday xx

Three Mountains, Three Countries, 24 Hours

Design by Matt

On Sunday the 25th of May at 8pm myself and 7 others will start the drive from London to Scotland. When we get there we will set the clock and start the Three Peaks Challenge. We will be climbing the highest mountains in the British isles, Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon... all within 24 hours.

In the 24 hours we will go from Scotland to England to Wales and walk over 26 Miles (44 km). I am realllly excited to do this but also pretty scared. I spend most of my days sat at a desk, and my walking boots havent seen any action for years. So I am relying on a few practice hikes, my stubborness and chocolate every few miles to get me through. I really struggle when I'm tired and therefore apologise to my comrades in advance.

But I'm not just doing this for the blisters. I want to raise money for a brilliant charity called XLP, they work in 7 boroughs across London and want to see the lives of young people transformed for the better. The charity have been part of my life for the past 4 years, I did a gap year with XLP after college, which is where I met Matt ;) Today we work very closely with their projects in the borough of Newham.

They are a really relevant charity who get into the heart of the issues young people face in the inner city.  Im not sure I've done them justice so please click here to find out more about XLP.

If you would like to sponsor me and give to this cause you can do 3 things:
1. Visit  https://www.justgiving.com/xlpthreepeaks
2. Text PEAK78 £5 to 70070 (£5 can be replaced with £1,2,10)
3. Speak to me in person


THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH!

and so it begins #bedm

Im going to be taking part in the blog every day in May challenge, this is something that Rosalilum challenged fellow bloggers to and it’ll certainly be the most consistently I’ve blogged everrrr. Oh and my lovely friend Laura is also partaking. 

I thought I would start by introducing myself, I realised that I don’t really speak much about who I am on here, only what I do. So perhaps this month will also be a chance to know me better, I may even share a secret or two along the way. This blog started when I decided to go ahead with my dream of running craft workshops, its therefore a strange mix of personal and craft posts. I really love blogging but often feel in limbo about what this space is- hopefully by the end of the month I’ll know what I most enjoy blogging about. 

This indecisiveness doesn’t just happen in blogging. I’m the kind of person who wants to try every job, live in every country, dress in every style. It gets quite annoying at times. Im 21 and about to graduate, last week I wanted to be a craft wedding consultant (I know that doesn’t exist) and this week I want to work in PR in the city. My degree is in Communications AND Community development with education studies. So its not even like my degree can help me decide! But secretly I think I like the fact I want to embrace everything. 

Im also married, his name is Matt and we’ve been married 2 years in June. I know bloggers love to gush about these things, but marriage genuinely is the best. Oh and we live in East London. Are you a Londoner? Is so you should absolutely come along to my next craft workshop on the 14th! 

Something I bet you didn’t know about me: I was in the ‘special’ groups that met in a ‘special’ room for Maths and English throughout junior school. I must have improved at English but I’m not sure about Maths.